ITS COLD OUTSIDE – LET ME IN

The debate that rages about what constitutes, as Dubuffet termed it, ‘Art Brut’, or the less patronising label that Roger Cardinal first coined in 1972,‘Outsider’art, at least in the UK, continues to be an impregnable wall of mystery and fraught with interpretational difficulties.

It is not the aim of this essay to define the meaning of the word’Outsider’ in this context, as it is assumed that a sophisticated Biennale audience should have already got the gist, but merely to shine a light into a dark corner of the world of art that has long been unfairly overlooked and vastly underrated.

Understandably, critics and scholars are having a field day writing reams of copy to kick-start the de-mystification process, whilst plugging their own agendas in various sections of the media. And all the time the interest continues to grow globally.

More often than not, roughly the same conclusions are formed. It all seems to be a matter of degree of purity as to whether an artist has the right credentials to be part of this magical heterogeneous group called ‘Outsider’ artists.

The Venn diagram, with ‘Mainstream’ artists to the left and ‘Outsider’artists to the right continues to close up,. The oval - shaped, central section of the diagram, whether you like it or not, is getting inexorably larger.

In an ‘anything goes’ cultural environment, it is hardly suprising that the Pandora’s Box that is ‘Outsider’ Art has finally opened up. And some are finding the contents of the box not quite as palatable as they thought they might, and would quite happily slam the lid straight back down, lock it and throw away the key.

Others are more curious and can see the huge range of largely marginalized talent that has yet to see the light of day, in an environment and system completely geared to mainstream artistic practice.

After all, for years ‘Outsider’ art has been suspended in aspic. The early pioneers, such as Hans Prinzhorn, Walter Morgenthaler, various members of the surrealist movement and Dubuffet laid down stringent classification guidelines. These were altered over time to suit various agendas. Not much changes it seems.

A distinguished group of collectors, intellectuals, galleries and members of the medical profession have since shuffled between symposium to museum show, to tiny back-street commercial gallery concerns, in pursuit of their ‘Outsider’ fix.

And to a greater or lesser extent, they have been largely satisfied with these arrangements, though I’m not sure many of the artists have been in a position to argue their corner. Some of the big names are now fetching large sums of money on the open market and a wider collector base has evolved, notably in the US, France and Switzerland. But these success stories are largely attributable to a handful of dead artists.

What continues to happen, and some would argue perfectly legitimately, is that mainstream artists continue to plunder ‘Outsider’ art for inspiration. If it wasn’t for ‘Outsider’ art, 20th century Modernism would be looking a bit thin on the ground, and some of the big international stars wouldn’t be where they are today. That is a fact.

The only problem with this situation is that the current position is not reciprocal. There is a real case to be made against the exploitation of a minority group of highly vulnerable artists, of every shade and hue imaginable within the ‘Outsider’ paradigm. And it is happening often in the most blatant way.

Without the infrastructure to facilitate grants, prize monies or opportunities for advancement easily within the cosy confines of the art establishment, ‘Outsider’ artists have always been and continue to be feted largely by amateur enthusiasts and a coterie of dealers. More often than not, commercial concerns make it possible for only a small portion of a gallery programme to be showing ‘Outsider’ work and even then they tend to be mixed shows with a scattering of old favourites to get bums on seats.

By including a section in the Prague Biennale for ‘Outsiders,’ the organisers have recognized the importance of being inclusive in the peripheral vision that makes up the overall view in contemporary art. ‘Outsider’ art is a global phenomenon and as open to being monitored for changes and shifts in influences as mainstream practices.

That said, the four artists selected are not in any way meant to represent the classifications set down by our various forebears. On the contrary, the challenge upon those who wish to attempt new classifications or point fingers of disapproval, is to set out a veritable coconut shy of conundrums and challenges for them to target.

The four artists selected artists are as follows: Damian and Delaine Le Bas, Wayne Lucas and Barbara Symmons.

Barbara Symmons perhaps is the only artist who strictly conforms to the self-taught ‘Outsider’ visionary. Hers is a gentle myriad of other world ‘environments’, brightly coloured, richly textured, and often obsessively distorted in scale and form.

Damian Le Bas, though studying textiles at the Royal College of Art, London, was recognized as an ‘Outsider’ after leaving college and has since had work collected in many important ‘Outsider’ collections, including the Musgrave Kinley collection housed at the Museum of Modern Art, Dublin. His paintings are generally composed of a central character that is surrounded by a web of pulsating contour lines that delineate new forms moulding out of the previous form. Text about personal gripes, distractions and emotions are openly displayed.

Delaine Le Bas also studied textiles at St. Marrtins School of Art in London and has worked collaboratively and independently from her husband. Her intiricate, highly textured, heavily ornate embroideries and dolls look introspectively at the confines of her Romany upbringing, infusing her fairytale scenarios with cathartic outbursts of rage and disaffection with the injustices of the ‘Outsider’life. Her next solo exhibition will be at Transition Gallery, London in June 2005.

Wayne Lucas is by contrast a self-confessed mainstream artist, fully aware of his intentions as an artist, but finding himself over a number of years conforming gradually to an ‘Outsiders’ peculiar propensity for hyper- obsessive constructions. His work has been shown internationally with his most recent inclusion in ‘Obstractivism’ at Hales Gallery, London.

James Colman
Norwich, England, March 2005
gallery@jamescolman.com